Tag / beer

When we used to sell beer to pubs nearly 20 years ago there were only two things that customers really wanted. Beer mats and A boards. Those were the days. Deliver those and selling the beer was easy.

Interestingly, although the world has changed almost unrecognisably in that short period of time, A boards can still be found outside the majority of pubs and bars the length and breadth of the country.

Now, we’re not suggesting for a minute that there’s anything wrong with this, but the world has moved on. There’s a whole generation of consumers who have probably lodged dozens of claims with “ACCIDENT NOT MY FAULT.com” because they walked into an A board whilst buried in their mobile phone.

At Useyourlocal.com we let pubs and brands connect with consumers before they walk into that A board. We know that people like going to the pub, and we know they think they should probably go more often. We just make it easy and give them a timely and relevant excuse.

You remember, the one with the open fires, yummy cask ale and fab rooms. The one that did the best steak and chips on the planet and where there’s a great quiz night every Thursday.

Well, if you’re anything like us you just can’t remember its name when you need to. You can picture it perfectly but your brain’s like the mushy peas they served with their delicious beer batter cod.

That’s precisely why we invented Publister. Now you can create your very own lists of the pubs you love. You can have as many lists as you like. What about “My favourite pubs with accommodation” or “Country pubs with open fires”. You can save them, publish them and share them with whoever you like.

They automatically save to your profile, so the next time you need a reminder they’re all there.

Some time ago we introduced Google Streetview to those pubs’ pages on useyourlocal.com where we didn’t have a photo. Nothing too new about that, I know. However, this gave us an immediate problem. The Streetview image would often be some distance from the pub, sometimes looking at a hedge or at the back of a bus. How annoying.

That’s why we can up with “Nail it!”. Anyone can now navigate using Streetview on our desktop site, find the pub, centre it nicely in the middle and “Nail it!’. The next time anyone then goes to that pub’s page they see the pub instead of the hedge. Sorted.

The only problem is that we’re now addicted to it. Try it, you’ll see what we mean.

The discovery of lager yeast’s parentage has implications for brewers and Diego Libkind, the primary researcher on a new study, is already tapping into some of these ideas.

A new discovery has unlocked the secret story of lager beer’s South American origins, and is lettings scientists piece together the genetic history of the domesticated microbe that keeps lager cool. This final piece of the yeast’s genetic family tree could one day help brewers create custom-made designer brews with carefully selected characteristics.

The modern day lager yeast is a hybrid, born from an ancient hookup between a Saccharomyces cerevisiae — a popular ingredient for brewers and bakers — and another yeast that Diego Libkind and his company have identified and named Sacchyromyces eubyanus. They published their study in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers surmise that at some time after the 16th century, S. eubayanus hitched a ride from South America to Europe with the travelling tradesmen, and fused with S. cerevisiae to create the lager yeast. Bavarian brewers discovered this hybrid and delighted to find that unlike ale yeasts, this species thrived under cold conditions. (This infographic has more on the difference between an ale and a lager.)

While the stowaway story makes for a fascinating tale, the discovery of the the lager yeast’s parentage has implications for brewers. Diego Libkind, the primary researcher on the study, is already tapping into some of these ideas. With funding from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), an Argentinian government institution that funds scientific research, Libkind is working on collaborating with a local brewery to test the capabilities of other, non-lager S. eubayanus lines that didn’t make it into the lager hybrid.